The Masked City (39 page)

Then the rope snapped, lashing free as it broke, and the boat jolted into motion. Vale collapsed in a pile with the semi-conscious Kai, and Irene went down on her hands and knees, as the gondola cut through the water like a motorboat towards the Train, the impression so convincing that she could almost believe she smelled smoke.

A nasty suspicion flared in her mind, and she turned to look at Kai. The wood of the gondola was indeed charring and smoking where his flesh touched it, and a matching discoloration was spreading like a rash on his skin.
He’s as allergic to this place as it’s allergic to him. There was no way I could have hidden him here and escaped later.
She turned back to the approaching Train, with a feeling of mingled dread and irritation at yet one more obstacle - how were they actually going to get into the thing? Still, climbing into a train from a burning gondola, at sea level, was a minor problem, considering what they were leaving behind.

The gondola crashed into the side of the Train and bobbed there crazily, pitching up and down. In mute invitation, the nearest Train door immediately swung open and Vale caught hold of it, steadying the gondola against the side of the Train while Irene scrambled into the carriage. Other gondolas, full of wild-eyed Venetians, were surging through the water towards them, in a dead silence that was almost more horrifying than screams or threats. She pulled Kai by the shoulders as Vale pushed, dragging him into the Train with adrenaline-fuelled strength. She’d barely levered him partway in, when the burned gondola gave way under Vale. He threw himself forward, clutching at the lip of the doorway as the planks sank beneath him.

‘Vale!’ Irene screamed, dropping her hold on Kai’s shoulders to reach for him.

Vale spat out sea water. ‘I can manage,’ he gasped, kicking to raise himself in the water and push himself into the carriage. ‘See to Strongrock!’

Irene tugged frantically at Kai. He was a dead weight, his eyes closed and his body limp, but she managed to drag him fully inside the carriage just as Vale finished pulling himself in too. From the corner of her eye, she could see the crowd banging on the platform-side doors. She ignored them. She didn’t think the Train would let them in.

The interior of the Train was silent, and they found themselves in a luxurious carriage, all ivory velvet and fittings, which made their soaked, dishevelled clothes seem even more inappropriate. But the challenge now was to flee this Venice before the Rider, or the Ten - or anyone else - could stop them.

It was time. Irene took a deep breath, rose to her feet and said firmly,
‘Train, Steed, Horse … or whatever I should call you, I am here to free you, so that we can escape together. Show me how.’

A scream shook the carriage, too loud to be human, and Irene clapped her hands to her ears before she belatedly recognized the Train venting steam. The noise settled down to a barely tolerable shudder, the wheels trembling in place, but not quite moving yet as the pistons shook in their housings.

‘Why isn’t it moving?’ Vale demanded. He pushed back wet hair from his face.

‘I don’t think it can, until I’ve freed it,’ Irene said. She looked round for any obvious indications and hoped it wouldn’t involve going outside again.

Vale frowned. ‘What did you try before - telling a story?’

Irene suppressed a moment of irritation at Vale telling
her
how to use the Language, and nodded, assembling a narrative. Right, that was it.
‘And the princess returned from her quest, with the prince with her,’
well, on the floor,
‘and her knight by her side.’
She couldn’t risk leaving Vale out of the story, in case the Train left him behind.
‘And the princess said to the horse, “Where are your bridle and reins, that I may free you from them?”’

Their carriage door swung open into the corridor. And, with a sigh, Vale swung Kai onto his shoulder again, staggering under the weight.

Irene was first through the door - and it slammed shut behind her, nearly catching her fingertips. She could see Vale and Kai on the other side through the carriage windows, but couldn’t prise open the door, however much she wrenched at the handle. ‘
Let them go!
‘ she shouted, seeing faces in the darkness behind Vale, on the platform outside the Train.

The humming of the engine steadied into a regular
shook-a-shook
, a trembling eagerness to depart. Maybe in this story the princess had to free the steed on her own. She’d trusted it so far - she’d just have to keep on trusting it.

With a hopefully reassuring gesture through the window, Irene headed down the corridor.

The door at the end of the passage led into darkness. Not the kind of darkness where you could just about see your way, but total pitch-darkness of the sort that suggested underground abysses or hidden cellars. She didn’t think a demand to turn the lights on would be much help.

With an inward sigh, Irene stepped through.

She was abruptly in the Train’s engine car, which was dark too, but she could now see a little further. It was filled with complex dials and levers, a coal-powered boiler to supply steam and a lot of gleaming oily pistons. She looked around for any obvious clues to take things forward.

There. A heavy silver padlock and chain were fastened around one of the largest levers, holding it in an upright position. It looked more ornamental than functional, something that anyone could easily lift off the handle and remove. But, she reminded herself, the symbolism might be important here. The memory of another chain months ago, and the trap that had been woven into it, made her hesitate. That time she’d been infected with raw chaos, and she’d only survived because Kai had broken her free. He wasn’t here now.

The machinery hummed around her. Then another scream was ripped from the steam whistle, as if - no, she was sure of it - the Train was impatient with the delay. But how was she supposed to protect herself in a high-chaos environment, when anything she might do could infect her with the stuff?

Well, perhaps she might try protecting herself in advance this time …

She scooped up a fingerful of oily grease and hastily scribbled her own name in the Language on the palm of her left hand, then repeated the process on the right. Hopefully defining herself in this way would help keep the chaos out. It had better: she was out of ideas.

‘And the princess saw the horse’s bridle and reins,’
she pronounced, flexing her fingers. The words hummed in her mouth and echoed in the engine car as she spoke them.
‘And she said to the horse, “Now I shall free you from your captivity, and you in turn will help me and those with me to escape.”’

The hum around her rose, throbbing loud enough to hurt her ears.
‘And the princess took the bridle and reins …’
She was having to shout now to hear herself over the sound of the engine. The Language tore at her throat and weighed on her lungs. Her body was moving as she spoke, and she could not, even for the sake of her sanity, be sure if she was moving of her own volition or because the Language was forcing the movements from her.

Her hands closed on the chain, and the bracelets that Silver had given her shattered, flying into fragments and cascading to the floor in a scatter of links. The mask covering her face dissolved, crumbling into dust that clung to her wet skin. She could feel her own name in the Language burning into her skin, but the metal of the chain itself was cold and as normal as anything here could be.
‘And she drew it from the horse’s neck …’
Her arms rose upwards, dragging the chain from where it hung over the metal handle like a noose. For a long moment it seemed to cling to the top of the lever, dragging against it as if unwilling to be released.

She set her teeth.
‘And it came free!’
she shouted.

The small metal
ting
of the chain coming loose rang through the cabin, even louder than the pulsing of the engines. The metal links were slick against her palms now, like oil made solid. They snaked around her hands, curling about her wrists almost affectionately.

The Train shuddered lengthwise, the movement jerking along the carriage like the crack of a whip. Irene lost her balance, falling to her knees. And as if it had been waiting for its moment, the chain lunged for her neck. She cried out in shock, holding her now tightly bound hands as far away from her as she could, clinging desperately to the chain to stop it getting any closer. The chain’s ends brushed coldly against her skin, trying to get nearer to her throat.

Suddenly it slipped between her fingers, freeing her wrists, but flinging itself around her neck. She managed to get her fingers between the chain and her skin, but it tightened against them, cutting into her flesh in a vicious, deliberate attempt at murder. Her pulse rang in her ears even louder than the screaming of the Train’s whistle.

She shut her eyes, forcing back panic, holding on to a last thread of consciousness. There was still air in her lungs.
‘Chain, slacken,’
she wheezed, the words coming out in a barely audible whisper.
‘Slacken enough for me to breathe.’

The chain relaxed its stranglehold, and the flashing lights in front of her eyes receded. It shifted and flexed against her fingers, writhing around her neck as if trying to find a new avenue for attack. If it was somehow alive, then the Language wouldn’t have a lasting effect on it. She could throw it out of the window, perhaps? Or, better still, destroy it? Tell it to come to pieces? But what if it re-joined itself?

The boiler door drew her eye, and she staggered across to it and threw the door open. Heat came rushing out, searing her face and making her choke again. The chain tightened as if in response, grinding the fingers of her other hand against her neck and dragging her head back.

‘Fae silver chain,’
she gritted out, being as precise as she could,
‘loosen! Be quiescent! HOLD STILL!’

The chain went slack enough for her to wrench it over her head and get a firm hold of it with both hands. She balled it up and flung it into the furnace, and it clattered and twisted as it left her hands, trying to move and lunge at her. She slammed the boiler door on it, her hands aching from the scorching heat. It hammered at the door, but after a few seconds its last desperate clangs died away.

Then the great lever came down of its own volition.

The steam whistle screamed, but this was a cry of joyous liberation, wild freedom finally allowed to run loose. The whole engine car shook, and the Train began to move.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

For a long moment all Irene could do was lean over, rest her hands on her thighs and breathe. The wet fabric of her skirts soothed her scoured palms, and there was a great aching numbness in her mind. She’d done it. The Train was moving. All three of them were safely on board.

They’d
done
it.

Outside the window she could see nothing but dark water, shivering and tossing, with distant lights catching the foam-caps. Hopefully it would be a quicker journey back to Vale’s London than it had been to get here in the first place. The atmosphere on the Train must be nearly as toxic to Kai as Venice was.

She opened the engine car door, then hesitated. The carriage beyond was
not
the one that she had just left. The Train must somehow have readjusted itself, to bring her so quickly to this end of its structure. ‘Ah …’ she started, feeling a bit foolish addressing the Train in so conversational a way. ‘Please can you return me to the carriage containing my companions?’

The carriage was silent.

All right. That was probably a ‘no’, so she had a walk ahead of her. Shouting at the Train would be a waste of time - but slamming the door did make her feel better.

Just as before, each carriage was different and displayed new heights of luxury. The only shoddy element here was her. And as she travelled the length of the Train it seemed to be moving more erratically than before, with the juddering and shaking of a regular steam train. Each step had Irene swaying in order to keep her balance.